Heavy Duty Trucking, January 2018

JANUARY 2018 HDT 29 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM Lockheed Martins Autonomous Mobility Applique System has logged more than 55000 miles in testing during the U S Armys Extended Warfighter Experiment at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri and Fort Bliss Texas The AMAS kit consists of sensors actuators and controls that can be installed on nearly any military tactical wheeled vehicle The system provides driver warning assistance and semi autonomous leader follower capability designed to improve safety for convoys in a military setting The system can reduce manpower needed for convoy operations freeing up soldiers for other tasks and removing them from exposure to improvised explosive devices and other enemy activity while on resupply missions says the company Testing included a palletized loading system and vehicle convoys in which the lead vehicle was driven by a soldier and the following vehicles three to four followed robotically Mercedes Benz recently concluded a three week test program in Zurich Switzerland that used drones and Mercedes Benz vans to make on demand deliveries The program was conducted with U S drone developer Matternet and a Swiss online marketplace called Siroop Customers who ordered certain items from a local coffee roasting company were given the option to use same day delivery by drone Mercedes Benz said it made 100 deliveries to 50 customers with a 100 success rate delivering packages as far as 11 miles The drones delivered the packages not directly to the consumer but to Mercedes Benz vans at four pre determined locations around the city The packages were then taken a short distance by van to each address The Vans and Drones program is aimed at speeding up delivery times by bypassing traffic in densely populated areas The goal is to eventually sync up the drones and van fleet so that they will not have to travel to pre determined rendezvous points and can meet the vans while they are already on a regular route More tests of the Vans and Drones program are planned for this year Autonomous convoy tested for military applications Mercedes Benz successfully tests drone van team Europe in developing electric vehicle technology You can sneer if you like But electric trucks will be an everyday component of at least some types of fleet operations in the very near future 3 Autonomous tech is coming fast Perhaps the most remarkable takeaway from Teslas launch may be that it will be the first truck offered with standard autonomous vehicle controls when it goes into production in 2019 Depending on where you live you will likely see or experience autonomous vehicles in the real world sometime in the next five years It may be a robot shuttle running to your hotel in Las Vegas or a refuse truck slowly working its way up your San Francisco street or a three truck platoon running west on I 80 out of Ogallala Nebraska In any event it is likely the adoption rate for autonomous technology and the advanced driver assistance systems that are the foundation of these technologies will increase at an exponential rate as we become comfortable and familiar with the technology 4 A new frontier in driver vehicle interface is dawning For me the most revelatory aspect of the Tesla interior which the company has pioneered on its automotive line was the fresh way it uses large intuitive easy to navigate display screens to quickly relay information to drivers while allowing them to easily operate various vehicle control systems It seems to me that Tesla is substantially ahead of the traditional automotive and commercial vehicle OEMs on this front although Volvo has clearly been thinking about this issue a lot recently as its new VNL and VNR launches showed My sense is that Tesla has shown the way forward in terms of how a near future driver information system is going to function and that other OEMs will soon follow suit with vastly improved systems of their own Read more about the Tesla Semi launch at www truckinginfo com TeslaSemi Lockheed Martins autonomous vehicle system for military convoys provides driver warning assistance and semi autonomous leader follower capability designed to improve safety Mercedes Benz says a three week test of a new drone delivery system conducted in Switzerland was a success

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